


HP AU

by incendir



Category: Winner (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-04 12:39:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14020443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incendir/pseuds/incendir
Summary: BLOCKWINKON HP AU short stories. Tags for characters/fandoms will be edited/added as more stories are added.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [this](https://twitter.com/_92914/status/973283858241245184); in particular [this storyline](https://twitter.com/_92914/status/972122288756875264).

His screams are loudest the first week.

When he still feels pain as pain, when he still has the energy to make any sounds at all, when his bones are first broken, that is when his screams are the loudest. The first week, he still believes that he can endure everything and anything that happens. He has endured broken bones, after all, he has endured being strangled with his back pressed against rough stone, has endured being beaten by fists, has endured all of this with his wand and magic taken from him—there is nothing he hasn’t endured previously in this career.

On the sixth day (and he is counting, he needs to count the seconds, the minutes, the hours, the days, in order to keep his mind here where it needs to be), they notice the ring on his left hand and they notice how his thumb strokes it whenever they’ve left him alone—whenever he is curled up in a corner of the cell, catching his breath, trying to sleep, they notice how he touches it and fiddles with it.

An amateur mistake on his part.

There are two main guards who keep watch in front of his cell (not that they are needed, as the cuffs they’ve put around Seungyoon’s wrists and ankles absorb magic), and both of them are Muggles—relatives or friends of those who are wizards within this particular order of the movement. One of them asks him, in a tone that is mockingly polite, for him to hand over the ring and that they’ll decrease the strength of their blows tonight when the scheduled time comes for Seungyoon’s beatings if he does.

He smiles at them and says nothing.

The other guard is the one who unlocks the cell, punches Seungyoon across the face and in the stomach, wraps one hand around his throat and uses his other hand to pull the ring from Seungyoon’s finger. Seungyoon holds back the screams from how the guard is pressing his entire body over Seungyoon’s already broken legs, holds back the screams because he feels the blow to his stomach shift his strained ribs.

A part of him, the rational, cold part, asks cruelly for the reason he didn’t just hand it over when they asked so he would at least have a chance at lessening the pain he was about to endure if the guard had kept his word—that voice in Seungyoon’s head, cool and full of logic, demands to know why Seungyoon would think the ring means anything at this point anyway.

Seungyoon stares at the blood dripping from his mouth to the concrete floor of the cell and he feels the corners of his lips turn up in a humorless, bitter smile.

Not after this—even if he made it out of this alive, and sane, he is fairly certain Minho is done with him. He almost laughs out loud right there, despite how much pain he’s in, that he even bade Thor goodbye with the idea that Minho would still be there when Seungyoon returned. If Seungyoon did return alive, Minho would see the state that he returns in and that would be that. Enough heartache, enough stress, enough worrying for a lifetime.

Seungyoon couldn’t exactly hold that against him.

He wants to pass out, he’s about to let himself simply let go of consciousness in that moment when piercing shrieks and a searing heat, a flash of bright flames, yanks Seungyoon back into the present. His breath catches in his throat, shock gripping him, as he watches one of the guards—the one who had taken his ring and worn it in that moment—burst into flames.

That night, they beat his legs until they break again—a break at his ankles and a break at his knees. He loses consciousness, and he gladly, gratefully, lets go into the blissful painless abyss.

 

* * *

 

They don’t feed him for a week because of the ring—several more Muggles try to wear it, or handle it, and they all are killed by the flames. It ends up having to be handled by the wizards, moved back and forth solely by magic before being pocketed by the one that Seungyoon realizes must be the leader of this chapter.

The leader stops by Seungyoon’s cell that day, entering it with two of the Muggles at either side. He kneels to where Seungyoon is lying, and yanks his head up with a fist in his hair. The ring is floating in front of Seungyoon’s face, the leader’s wand pointed at it. “Claw or feather?” he murmurs, tightening his grip on Seungyoon’s hair and shaking for an answer.

“Feather,” Seungyoon says, and is stupidly proud of how steady and clear his voice is even though, just last night, they’d twisted his arms around his back and pulled until they popped out of his shoulder sockets.

“Mm,” the leader throws Seungyoon’s head to the ground, purposely so that his forehead scratches against the rough surface. He digs his teeth into his lip, feeling the bruise that will form, feeling the cut that has probably already formed. “I tried to destroy it, several of us tried—and nothing happened. I figured as much. In any case, I’ll have one of my men keep it safe for you. It’ll pull a hefty price whenever we can find a buyer stupid enough.”

Seungyoon foolishly—so, so foolishly, upon seeing the ring so close again, upon being delirious with starvation and pain ( _upon not wanting to give up even the memory of what he had_ )—uses the bits and pieces of magic he had pulled away from the cuffs, and mouths, “Accio.”

His body is thrown into the ceiling and then flung back down with force into the floor before he can take a single breath after the attempted spell. It happens so quickly, his eyes do not even close, and he sees the leader’s wand pointed at him—the leader’s smile as well.

Seungyoon chokes for air, chokes on air, his entire body spasming at having everything rebroken, at the shock of the sheer force that just hit through him—he wonders if he is fortunate or unfortunate that his skull and spine haven’t simply cracked yet, that he hasn’t just died yet.

“I was told what finger, what hand, you wore the ring on—I know who you are,” the leader says coolly, turning to leave. “Maybe we won’t sell it just yet, then. Maybe we’ll leave it so your beloved Pureblood will find it here with your remains.”

If Seungyoon’s eyelids weren’t already fluttering, if the edges of his vision weren’t already blurring, if he wasn’t more than ready to once again let himself fall back into senseless darkness, he would have laughed right into that wizard’s face.

They might as well sell the ring, considering Minho most likely stopped wearing his the night Seungyoon left.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes, he dreams.

He doesn’t know how, because what he falls into is less like sleep and more like a taste of death, but he dreams still. He dreams more vividly than ever, and he supposes most likely it’s the fever burning its way through his body from all the inflammation of the unhealed bones and bruises and cuts—possibly also infection on all the wounds left open for all these weeks.

They are good dreams, and Seungyoon despises it. He prefers nightmares. He would much rather nightmares so gruesome they make the situation Seungyoon is in seem even a shred more bearable. Good dreams are always the worst. It makes the pain of waking from them so visceral that Seungyoon always opens his eyes every morning (if it is even morning when he wakes, if he even has a sense of time anymore, here, in this stone prison where he hasn’t seen the sun for days that he has lost count of) with wetness streaked down his cheeks.

The dreams are mostly memories—mostly of Minho, and mostly of Hogwarts.

The Minho in his dreams is vastly different from the one he has become accustomed to, perhaps too used to—taken for granted—in recent years. The Minho Seungyoon is able to see every night the pain forces his eyes closed has full cheeks, a round face—a round everything—and a smile that crinkles his eyes when he looks at Seungyoon. His voice isn’t as deep, and he isn’t as tall—he wears robes that are ill-fitting, the grey sweater vest falling awkwardly on him, his tie always knotted incorrectly.

Different, so different, than the wizard Seungyoon had left that night—a wizard of the Ministry, a wizard constantly in suits and robes that fit him like a glove, tie knotted pristinely against his throat, dark hair swept back from a face without an ounce of fat on it—a wizard who had pleaded for Seungyoon to stay in a deep, desperate voice.

A man who still smiled at Seungyoon with crinkling eyes the same way he had when he was a boy—seven, ten, twelve—years ago.

The Minho in Seungyoon’s dreams only knows how to smile at him though—he doesn’t yet know how to snap at Seungyoon, how to be hurt by Seungyoon—he doesn’t yet know how carelessly Seungyoon would regard his worries, his exhaustion, his stress over Seungyoon’s chosen career. The Minho in Seungyoon’s dreams would never believe that one day Seungyoon would break his heart without looking back.

Seungyoon knows it’s useless to wish for that Minho to be the one waiting for him if he ever returned alive because only the Seungyoon in his dreams still deserves to be loved by that Minho.

 

* * *

  
  
He doesn’t scream anymore.

 

* * *

  
  
(Seungyoon hopes, prays, that Minho had taken off the ring the moment Seungyoon walked away from him that night. He hopes Minho is angry with him—unforgivably, irreparably angry. He hopes Minho hates him. He hopes Minho wants nothing more to do with him, wants to move on and forget that Seungyoon ever existed.

He hopes, he hopes, he hopes—

Even though he knows it’s hopeless—because Minho is not that kind of man.

Nonetheless, Seungyoon still hopes because he doesn’t think he could die in peace if he wasn’t certain that Minho would not mourn—that Minho would be happy without him.

Minho must be happy without him.)

 

* * *

 

Death, Seungyoon thinks, isn’t so bad.

He thinks it’s odd that he still feels pain, considering all that he’s read about death states that it should be as simple and easy as sleep—perfect, black, nothingness, completely unfeeling—but Seungyoon still feels most of the pain that he had when he was alive. Some of it is fading, he feels the shallowest level of pain decreasing, but the deep, severe pain that he’s become accustomed to with every breath he takes is still there.

He finds it fairly strange, as well, that he still feels himself doing that—breathing—even though he’s dead.

However, he’s dead. For certain, absolute certain, he is quite, very, extremely dead.

Death, after all, is the only explanation that offers why Seungyoon had lost consciousness from the worst wave of pain imaginable so far—the worst beating he has endured yet, one where they twist his broken legs into gruesome angles, one where he hears his own voice begging out loud for death as they laugh and continue to twist and break—only to wake up, to open his eyes, magic returning into his veins, and find himself looking up at Minho’s silhouette.

His vision is still terribly blurry, the world barely in focus—but he supposes that it isn’t as if he was exactly the best human. Since heaven is probably out of the question, this is probably the compromise. He wasn’t a horrible human—he considers himself a decent son, a fairly good friend and student, and perhaps he was a horrible fiance for the latter half of everything, but he was a good boyfriend beforehand.

Wherever Seungyoon is right now must be the place they throw not-great-but-not-that-bad souls, and considering they’ve seemed to have given back some of his magic into his ethereal, post-Death existence, as well as Minho—who doesn’t seem to be angry with him at all—this is far better than any afterlife Seungyoon would have predicted previously.

He hit the jackpot, honestly.

It is slightly confusing, though, that Minho doesn’t seem to be focused as much on Seungyoon as he thought the Minho-conjuration would if this was supposed to be his not-great-but-not-that-bad person’s afterlife reward. Minho has Seungyoon’s head cradled against his arm and thigh, one warm hand against Seungyoon’s cheek, but Minho is looking somewhere else, talking with someone else, and Seungyoon frowns (he thinks it’s strange that that movement hurts his face when nothing should be hurting in okay-heaven).

“Hyung, I can’t heal anything else,” Minho’s eyebrows are furrowed at someone, his fingers almost absently drifting to Seungyoon’s hair. “I don’t know—how are we going to move him—we can’t Apparate—”

“Let me see—” says a voice that decidedly isn’t Minho’s and that Seungyoon most probably wouldn’t choose if he could choose who he wanted to see in the afterlife if not for the fact that he knows he most probably sorely disappointed the owner of that voice during life itself. If Seungyoon wasn’t dead, if he could move, he thinks he would have jerked in shock upon seeing Jiho’s face hover over him beside Minho.

He doesn’t know why he lets his eyes immediately shut then—it’s easier, more comfortable, for sure, but also suddenly he feels a wave of soothing warmth sweep over him, encouraging his eyes to remain shut. Maybe he’s being transferred to another part of heaven—or the okay-heaven.

He feels a familiar, rough, large tongue suddenly envelop the entire side of his face, and the corners of his lips turn upward before he realizes it even though his eyes remain closed. He feels a large, wet, leathery nose snuff at his hair as well, and for certain, Seungyoon knows he was just moved a level higher in this afterlife. If they’ve given a conjuration of Thor—Seungyoon has definitely just been promoted.

“Careful, boy,” he hears Minho’s voice, low and soft, that warm hand again back on Seungyoon’s cheek after the wetness leaves it. There’s a hint, the barest hint, of amusement in Minho’s voice. His tone is so gentle that Seungyoon knows with even more conviction that he’s dead. If he was still alive—

( _The only way he would deserve this Minho is if he was dead._ )

“You can jump on him and lick him all you want later,” Minho laughs, and Seungyoon hears the faint huff of Thor’s breath. “I missed him, too.” Those fingers in Seungyoon’s hair again. “I missed him, too,” Minho’s voice cracks on the repeat, breaks off in a way that makes Seungyoon’s heart stutter and he wishes he was dead.

He has to be dead.

He should be dead and Minho shouldn’t be here.

He wonders if there’s still time to die—wonders if it would be better to be cruel to be kind for his body to simply give out even though Jiho and Minho are most likely fighting against the clock to deliver Seungyoon to safety and help. He wonders, as he feels it getting difficult to breathe again, as he feels the pain that had abated when his magic flooded back in begin to return. He wonders, and is stopped from wondering as he feels the tip of a wand touch his temple, and he hears Minho murmur softly, “ _Dormio_.”

 

* * *

  
  
Seungyoon is not dead.

He knows this because in no version of the afterlife would there ever be a hospital involved. Hospitals are for the living—or, at least, those who are closer to being alive than they are to death. Moreover, although he understands some pain perhaps being involved in the afterlife of those who weren’t quite perfect humans during their lifetime, there is no explanation for the piercing pain that shoots through his entire body, excruciating and sharp for the swiftest second before a healer waves her wand and he blissfully feels nothing more. He knows that pain—the familiar sensation of bones being re-broken, even though he doesn’t think he has ever had four sets of bones re-broken and set simultaneously.

He is definitely not dead, he thinks, the moment he sees Yunhyeong’s partially amused, partially, utterly concerned face hovering over his during a brief moment of consciousness. “They really did a number on you, hyung,” he says. Seungyoon opens his mouth to reply, even though his brain still feels too foggy to come up with anything witty, but his voice seems to be as blurry as his mind. He loses his train of weak thought for a reply, and another thought surfaces instead as it strikes him that Yunhyeong is here—in the emergency ward, or what Seungyoon assumes must be.

“The shifts are all a mess this week,” Yunhyeong answers, even though Seungyoon swears he hasn’t spoken. The healer seems to be the only one in the room right now, one hand and his wand hovering over Seungyoon’s mid-section. His expression is focused, a soft, orange glow emitting over Seungyoon’s stomach. “We’re understaffed, so I’m helping out up here.”

Yunhyeong’s wand flicks and Seungyoon gasps, his entire body jerking involuntarily. He tries not to look accusingly at the healer, but the glare comes out naturally even though his eyes are threatening to close again—and he hates it, he hates being unconscious, he’s sick of all the lapses in his time and memory. “Ribs,” Yunhyeong says apologetically. “I’m just trying to ease the inflammation around them. Do you want me to put you under again?”

Seungyoon thinks he does a fairly decent impression of being alert and in complete recovery mode, but Yunhyeong’s expression just transitions from concerned to intensely concerned—and then, worst of all, to _knowing_. “He’s with the Head Auror, right now,” the healer says softly. “I think they’re talking to your mom, hyung.”

At that, Seungyoon does close his eyes, a sigh passing his lips. He’s tired—so tired—and even though the last thing he should want is his mother here and knowing about this and worrying about him—the thought of seeing her face, of having her at his bedside, makes every painful breath feel a little bit easier.

He wishes he could have been the son that didn’t cause his mother to wonder if she will have to bury her own child before herself.

“The Healer-in-Charge will have to put you under again in a bit, anyway, hyung,” Yunhyeong’s soothing voice brings Seungyoon out of his brief thoughts. “You’ll be out for at least a couple of days for all the spells that we set to start working.”

More days to look forward to spent in unfeeling darkness—more days of his life he’ll never get back. He supposes that there isn’t any other way to view all of this other than it being his well-deserved punishment. The universe’s way of saying that he didn’t quite deserve death yet nor did he deserve an easy recovery back into life.

Seungyoon exhales roughly, a cough fighting its way up his throat. When he hacks it up, he feels warm liquid making its way up his throat as well, spilling over his lips slightly. Yunhyeong’s expression turns grave, jaw set, as he waves his wand over Seungyoon’s face. He knows it’s blood—realizes that as it’s siphoned away by Yunhyeong’s wand. “Internal injuries need a stronger spell, noted,” Yunhyeong mutters.

Seungyoon blinks up at the white ceiling, turning his head slightly, and nodding—he knows Yunhyeong will understand. The healer gives a small smile, wand ready to tap at Seungyoon’s eyes. “You’ll be okay, hyung—I promise,” he whispers, and with a wave of his wand, blackness once again envelops Seungyoon.

 

* * *

  
  
The next time consciousness comes to Seungyoon, it comes far more gently than it has in the past month—even in the past twenty-four hours. He is lulled awake, much more akin to waking up from a deep, full sleep rather than jerked awake every now and again by searing pain that refuses to assault him peacefully in unconsciousness. His eyes open to semi-darkness, and he’s in a hospital room now rather than the emergency ward—a bed rather than the healing table.

His eyes adjust to the lack of light, to being able to see clearly without the haze of agony for the first time in weeks, and he realizes that there is someone in the room with him—right beside him, awake as well.

Minho is sitting in a chair, pushed up right against the hospital bed, his entire upper half leaning into the bed, staring at Seungyoon’s open eyes as if he can’t believe what his own eyes are seeing. He isn’t wearing robes, rather a sweatshirt and jeans, perhaps the most ordinary, unassuming outfit Seungyoon has seen him wear in years. Even through the darkness, Seungyoon can see the dark, deep shadows beneath Minho’s eyes.

Minho’s eyes are also so red, puffy and wet, as if he’d rubbed them raw already again and again with the back of his hand.

He looks as if he’d been there right beside Seungyoon, having his bones shattered over and over again as well—he looks as exhausted as Seungyoon feels, more miserable than Seungyoon is, more wrought out and tired of being terrified, in greater pain than Seungyoon has ever seen across the other man’s face.

_I’m sorry._

_I don’t deserve you._

_You did enough by getting me here._

_That’s enough._

_You can go._

_I’m sorry._

_I’m sorry_

_I’m sorry_

_I’m so sorry._

Seungyoon swallows all of the words that first stand at the tip of his tongue upon seeing Minho like this. Instead, he tries to harden the cracks in his heart, wraps himself in something less vulnerable, more composed, more _Kang Seungyoon_ , and says, “I’ll clean the bathroom for a month, if you don’t say, ‘I told you so.””

Minho’s expression is filled with so much relief and exasperation and amusement and utter, utter gladness as he deflates completely against Seungyoon, collapsing forward and burying his face gingerly against Seungyoon’s neck, arms curled up still between their bodies to not jostle the casts that Seungyoon’s torso and own arms are in—nor the slings his legs are in hanging from the ceiling.

Seungyoon feels the collar of his hospital robes begin to soak in seconds, but he has no laughter in him—can only bury his own face into Minho’s hair, wondering how long will Minho’s grief and loyalty last to keep him at Seungyoon’s side.

It would be no less than Seungyoon deserves—naturally—that he so unhesitatingly disregarded Minho’s fear of losing him, and now all that is left is for Seungyoon to lose Minho.


	2. Chapter 2

Asuka’s tears do nothing for the scarring—there are still, and will always be, vast splotches of blue and yellow as well as raised scar tissue crisscrossing and coloring all over the skin of Seungyoon’s legs. He pushes that out of his mind though, or he tries to, even though it’s all he sees every time he lifts his blankets up. It’s possibly the most trivial aspect out of all of this—both of his legs are still here, attached to him, and don’t need to be taken off. What they look like is such a non-issue that he should be able to look at his discolored skin and not even blink, let alone stare and spend hours that he’ll never tell anyone about going through every potion and spell he can possibly think of that could possibly have a chance in clearing it.

Hours wasted, he knows, because if there was a way, any of the healers would have already suggested it. Vanity at its finest, Seungyoon snorts to himself bitterly, but at the very least, no one will ever know exactly how much time he’s wasted mulling this over.

He should just be grateful—thankful, eternally thankful, and relieved that the leg he could barely bend will now soon be fully functional again after the Muggle methods he intends to employ in recovering it, and the leg that no longer even had working nerves can now feel again when someone touches it. Seungyoon can work on that, too. The Healers had deemed both legs more or less useless, telling him that there’s no reason for him to exert himself trying to recover function in either anyway—there are wheelchairs and Apparition for anything he might need legs for anyway—that’s what _magic_ is for, they say.

When Seungyoon was six, his school went for a field trip to a theme park and he’d gotten lost and climbed an attraction he probably shouldn’t have climbed and wouldn’t have if there had been teachers around. He received a broken arm for his trouble, and there was no magic to mend him right up—twice a week for several months, his mother would bring him to a small clinic the hospital had recommended and he would practice with exercises until his arm could bend the way it had before the break.

Because of Jinwoo, because of the phoenix tears he had bottled and given to Seungyoon in time to leave again before someone from the Ministry inevitably dropped by to see Seungyoon or to speak to Minho and witnessed Jinwoo, Seungyoon’s left leg more or less has its damage reduced to that of a broken bone, and due to the resetting, the break is now clean. It’s a break that cannot be healed by magic, and the full function and flexibility can also not be restored by magic, but Seungyoon’s body is still healing the bone the natural way.

 _The Muggle way_ a Healer had corrected when Seungyoon attempted to raise discussion about this during his morning check.

Seungyoon had bitten back the _well, I was born a Muggle_ that was poised on the tip of his tongue and had smiled back briskly as the Healer had requested he lay back for the rib inspection.

 

* * *

  


Jiho visits twice a week, the particular days depending on his schedule, and his first visit of the week, the third week Seungyoon has been consistently conscious, falls on Tuesday. He bustles in, as always, with food that Seungyoon can’t get in the hospital otherwise, sometime around ten in the morning, placing it on the nightstand and collapsing into the seat at Seungyoon’s bedside. Like every time that Seungyoon sees the older wizard, he looks simultaneously exhausted and wired. Neither the neat way his hair is slicked back nor the elegant way his robes billow do anything to hide the combined weariness and tension.

“I see Minho was already here,” Jiho remarks, eyeing the Chocolate Cauldrons Seungyoon is chomping down on at ten in the morning.

“You don’t have to keep coming by, you know,” Seungyoon says, offering Jiho one of the chocolates with a raised eyebrow. Jiho wrinkles his nose and shakes his head, leaning back away from the sweets. “I’m sure you’re backlogged to hell and back, and there’s only so much Donghyuk can do before the Prophet has the field day it’s been begging to have for the past month.”

“PR isn’t my problem,” Jiho waves a hand. “I’d resign, anyway, if it was—”

Seungyoon rolls his eyes.

“—I just came by to tell you that the case is wrapped up—officially—as of the end of last week. The trial finished,” Jiho says, slowly, in a low voice. He meets Seungyoon’s eyes carefully. “They’ve all been sentenced. It was still your mission, so I thought you had the right to know from me.”

Jiho’s expression is soft, but Seungyoon still has to look away too soon. He knows that there’s no disappointment, there’s no failed expectations or anything of the sort when it comes to him and Jiho. It doesn’t mean, however, that Seungyoon doesn’t still feel as though he has let down the boy who became like an older brother to him all those years ago.

“Thanks,” Seungyoon finally finds his voice steady enough to say. “Thanks, hyung.”

Jiho places his hand on Seungyoon’s arm and squeezes, eyes somewhere between exasperated and knowing. “Don’t look at me like that,” he says, and Seungyoon has to laugh at that. “I’m the self-blame champion around here, and I don’t want my title taken away.” Seungyoon rolls his eyes again, but he finds himself smiling a little more genuinely now.

“Noted, hyung.”

 

* * *

  


Minho visits twice a day, every day.

Seungyoon holds back all the questions that he has about how and when Minho is getting work done at the Ministry if he seems to be at St. Mungo’s for what feels like nearly the entire day throughout the entire week. He holds back questions about when Minho is finding time to sleep. He knows he should ask—before—before all this had happened, Seungyoon wouldn’t have even asked, he would have simply demanded Minho refrain from the visits and rest instead.

Almost dying has made Seungyoon more selfish than he would have ever thought, he supposes. Or rather, losing Minho has perhaps made Seungyoon more selfish with every last possible moment he has counting down to the inevitable.

Minho usually arrives in the morning around the time the Healers wake Seungyoon up for his first check-in of the day as well as to serve him breakfast. He’ll come in after dropping a muffin off for Yunhyeong, and always brings something from Sugarplum’s for Seungyoon. Today, Minho came into Seungyoon’s room at eight in the morning on the dot, tossed a box of Chocolate Cauldrons into Seungyoon’s lap and kissed his mouth while reaching both hands behind Seungyoon’s back to fluff his pillows.

That morning Minho arrived in possibly one of Seungyoon’s favorite of the other wizard’s Ministry suits—dark gray underneath black robes. Minho isn’t the type of wizard to wear gloves every day, but occasionally he did, and that morning, Seungyoon couldn’t help but stare, just a little as he always did, watching Minho pull his gloves off to eat breakfast with Seungyoon.

They talk about everything and nothing all at once—the way they always did—and it every day, every morning, it is the sort of conversation that came more easily than breathing, to the point where it made Seungyoon’s heart hurt. In some ways, he hopes he heals slowly. He doesn’t even know what there is to look forward to even after he heals anyway—however much he can even heal.

Minho left only a few minutes before Jiho had arrived—Seungyoon honestly wonders how they’d missed each other from the main entrance, which is the only Apparition post in the entire hospital.

Around six or seven in the evening, by the time Seungyoon had finished having the Healers help him wash up, Minho would make his second appearance for the day with dinner always in hand because Seungyoon had mentioned, sometime during the end of his first week conscious, he could only stomach so much hospital food a day—and he normally skipped lunch to nap anyway.

The Healers usually also make their final check shortly after the time Minho arrives, as well as leave two portions of Numbing Draught in case Seungyoon needs it to sleep. He takes it once when he wakes up, once before he naps in the afternoon, and again before he sleeps at night. They began leaving an extra portion after he’d woken up, screaming, in the middle of the night after one glass of it had worn off before the morning came.

Tonight, Minho brings stew and rice that he’d gone out and picked up from Seungyoon’s mother during his own lunch break. He’s pulling it out onto the small table in the room, bringing it back to hot and steaming with a wave of his wand, when the Healers for the last check of the day step through the door, one of them holding a tray of two, tall glasses of Numbing Draught. Seungyoon tries not to look at Minho’s expression as the Healers move around Seungyoon. Minho always watches with his jaw set tightly, a frown pulling his mouth down, brow furrowed.

This evening is no different, as Minho eventually smiles tensely at the Healers and asks how Seungyoon is today in regards to recovery progress—and, as it has been for the past four weeks, the report is simply that Seungyoon is healing on track internally, the functioning leg he has remaining is chugging along at a Muggle’s pace as magic still has no effect on it. They no longer even mention his right leg—they haven’t mentioned it for the past two weeks.

It doesn’t bother Seungyoon—he’d made his decision anyway—he’d lived an entire decade of his life without magic, he could do it again if that was the only way to recuperate. Minho, however, stares after the Healers as if tonight is really the night he considers walking after them and demanding that they do more—that they at least _say_ more. “Hey,” Seungyoon says, before Minho really does go after them. The other wizard turns, wearily and heavily, as if he had the entire weight of the world on his shoulders ( _Seungyoon’s fault_ ). When he faces Seungyoon, though, he smiles in a way that Seungyoon no longer deserves.

Seungyoon tries to smile back. “I’m starving.”

Minho’s own smile then finally reaches his eyes and spreads across his entire face in a way that makes Seungyoon’s throat tight and dry. Seungyoon knows how much weight he’s lost, after all, the Healers had expressed that one of the priorities in helping him recover faster is that he regains weight—it’s easier said than done, currently, since the side effect of taking so much Numbing Draught is that Seungyoon has nearly no appetite and the appetite he does maintain is finicky at best.

Nausea has also become more or less his constant state of being.

It helps when it’s his mother’s cooking—the familiarity somehow has his stomach more accepting of what he’s swallowing down to it. He still eats much more slowly than he would regularly, and he still craves more for something sweet than anything else, but he knows that won’t give him the right kind of gain he needs.

He’s gotten good, by now, at pretending as if he doesn’t notice that Minho is hardly eating himself—that Minho spends the majority of their meals together watching to see how much Seungyoon is eating.

(Suddenly, the ring resting against his chest, beneath his hospital robes, is so, so heavy.)

“Jiho-hyung came by today,” Seungyoon breaks the silence—never stifled or uncomfortable, but even beforehand, when they’re busy eating, they won’t speak much, they’ve known each other too long to feel the need to fill the quiet. “He told me the trial’s done.”

Minho jerks slightly at that for some reason, spoon hovering over his rice. Seungyoon’s eyes are immediately pulled to Minho’s left hand, catching the movement of Minho’s thumb—something that both of them had taken to doing often within the past year, simply out of habit, he supposes, rubbing the rings on their third fingers idly. Seungyoon still even finds himself doing it sometimes even though the third finger of his left hand is currently bare. “Yeah,” Minho says, stirring his stew. “I heard that, too.”

“Kyung-hyung told you?” Seungyoon asks. “He presided, right?”

Minho nods, eyes downward at his food as he takes in a spoonful of stew.

Seungyoon knows he’s lying.

He doesn’t know why Minho is lying—but he knows Minho is lying. He doesn’t press, however, because there’d be no purpose in doing so without knowing the reason why Minho feels the need to lie about who he heard about the trial from as well as Kyung being the Chief Warlock when he wasn’t. Seungyoon files it off to ask Jiho about later, perhaps—unless Jiho ends up lying to him as well.

They finish the meal in silence other than the bits and pieces of Ministry happenings Minho tells while becoming less and less discreet in watching every bite Seungyoon takes. By the end, Seungyoon has finished at least three-quarters of his food, which is a considerable improvement from even just the previous few days. Seungyoon can’t help but frown at how Minho had eaten less than half of his own food.

“My mom’s cooking isn’t up to snuff, anymore?” Seungyoon teases lightly, watching Minho’s expression carefully.

Minho rolls his eyes. “I ate a lot for lunch—we had a meeting,” he says. “You’re trying to fill out your ring again, and if I eat as much as you want me to, I won’t fit in mine anymore.”

“Then take it off,” Seungyoon shrugs, straight-faced. Minho blinks. Seungyoon raises his eyebrows.

Minho stands up, leaning across the tiny table, both palms down to balance himself. He draws in until his face is moments away from Seungyoon’s. He mirrors his expression to Seungyoon’s, gazing right into his eyes. Seungyoon remains as is, unmoving, without pulling back even a centimeter. They stare each other like that, unblinking, barely breathing, until both of them, at the same time, burst into laughter that feels a lot wetter due to the inadvisable distance they were at.

“You’re _disgusting_ ,” Seungyoon laughs, making a show of wiping saliva from his cheeks.

Minho groans, swiping his own face down on the sleeve of his dark, Ministry robes. “Your spit smells like kimchi stew— _you’re_ disgusting,” he says.

“Considering that’s what I just ate, that would be the logical conclusion.” Seungyoon leans to the side to dodge Minho’s feigned punch.

Minho begins to clean up the tupperware that Seungyoon’s mother had prepared the food in, and that they’d eaten out of. He sits back down, wand held up lightly as the lids begin to close themselves and the dishes begin sliding themselves back into the large bag. Since Minho is still standing close enough by, Seungyoon reaches up and loosens Minho’s tie, unbuttoning the topmost buttons.

“Thanks, I haven’t breathed all day,” Minho says, wand guiding the bag into the now empty chair. He perches on the edge of the table at Seungyoon’s side, adjusting his now open collar and sighing tiredly.

_I’m sorry._

There are dark circles beneath Minho’s eyes, and while he doesn’t look as if he’s lost any weight himself yet, he doesn’t exactly look healthy either. He looks like he needs to rest—and not just sleep. He looks as if he needs to cut out everything that’s stressing and burdening him currently in his life.

_Like me._

Seungyoon doesn’t say anything, simply looks up to meet Minho’s eyes and they look at each other for a moment. Minho’s eyes are as familiar as always, and gazing into them, even in complete silence for no purpose at all—no romantic intent, no specific mood or atmosphere, nothing like that—somehow, it always feels like coming home. It feels warm, and safe.

Minho bumps the back of his hand against Seungyoon’s arm. “Ready to go to bed?” he asks softly. When Seungyoon nods, Minho points his wand at Seungyoon, and he feels his entire body lighten, feels himself begin to hover slightly above his seat. He doesn’t move forward or backward, however, simply hovers, until he reaches out and wraps his arms around Minho’s neck.

Minho carries him for the duration of the charm until Seungyoon can lower himself back into the bed, taking his own wand from the nightstand and removing the charm so that he touches down onto the mattress—relenting back to gravity. Minho pulls the covers up over Seungyoon’s legs, and then one of the chairs from the small table slides over for Minho to sit down in.

Minho stays, always, until Seungyoon falls asleep.

Or until he believes Seungyoon is asleep.

Minho always brings paperwork to do, by the light of his wand after the lights in the room are off so Seungyoon can sleep. It’s ridiculous, Seungyoon thinks—it was ridiculous the first night Minho made it clear he wasn’t leaving until Seungyoon had passed out from a Sleeping Draught the Healers insisted on him, and it’s just as ridiculous now that Minho believes Seungyoon could ever willingly fall asleep with Minho sitting there, hunched over reports instead of going home and sleeping in a bed himself.

From the second week, when Seungyoon had been weaned off of Sleeping Draughts and only placed on Numbing Draughts, he’d begun to feign sleep because he honestly saw no other solution to Minho’s stubbornness and exhaustion.

He tells himself the reason he deliberates so much every night, the reason he tosses and turns or simply has his eyes too clearly half-open without turning around or evening out his breath is because it wouldn’t be a convincing enough act if he fell into play-sleep too fast, too soon. He tells himself it isn’t because he wants to prolong every possible waking moment he has with Minho while they are still more than friends—or, at least, while Minho is allowing them to still be more than friends for the sake of Seungyoon’s recovery.

Once Seungyoon has had enough of the way the light from Minho’s wand, mixed with the darkness of the rest of the room, plays on the contours of his face, his long eyelashes looking even darker and thicker because of the shadows they cast on the tops of his cheeks—once Seungyoon has watched enough times Minho sniffling into the back of his hand the way he does when he’s focused, when he works, the way Minho’s eyebrows raise in concentration, the way he purses his lips with narrowed eyes at certain parts of a report—once Seungyoon has seen enough for the night, he turns to face the opposing wall, falling silent and pacing his breaths.

There have been times when acting as if he’s asleep has actually made Seungyoon fall asleep while Minho packs up and leaves, but most times, especially recently as Seungyoon recovers more and more, Seungyoon is still awake by the time Minho leaves.

He expects tonight to be one of those nights as well, considering how much Seungyoon has on his mind this evening. He stares into the darkness, wide awake, even though he breathes carefully and quietly, utterly still, curled up the way Minho has remarked before he always sleeps—waiting for the sounds of Minho standing up.

The room remains silent—not even the sound of papers rustling. Instead, a moment later, what Seungyoon does hear, is the sound of wood hitting the floor. Seungyoon still does not move for a moment longer, but the utter silence is strange enough that he eventually does, turning slowly, peering first over his shoulder before turning the rest of the way. He moves with less hesitation when he sees that the room is pitch black now. He grabs his own wand, lighting it with the lowest light, just enough so that he can make out Minho’s wand on the floor, and Minho is sleeping, sitting upright, head nodding forward, hands still clutching reports and his quill.

_You’re so stupid._

_Kind and stupid._

Seungyoon puts out the light of his wand, and points it at Minho, carefully lifting the chair from the floor and moving it smoothly—gently so that Minho isn’t jostled, up against the wall beside the table. Seungyoon has Minho’s head tipped back to lean against the wall rather than in a position where he’d be aching for the entire day, and he has one of his pillows flown to rest between Minho’s head and the wall. He points his wand next at the reports in Minho’s hands, biting down on his lip as he focuses, pulling them out as slowly as possible so Minho doesn’t wake. The papers and Minho’s quill float onto the table, landing quietly.

Seungyoon lies down again after returning his wand to the nightstand. He turns onto his side to face Minho this time, unable to look away from the other man’s sleeping face through the darkness. It might have been hours, well into the night, that Seungyoon lies there awake, more awake than ever even though his body slowly grows tired. His mind continues to swim with voices—most of them wishing to be spoken aloud to Minho right then in that very moment.

He wants to wake Minho and tell him to go home—to go sleep in a bed so that tomorrow morning, Minho will not wake up in a panic, realizing that he only has hours to Apparate home, change, and rush to the Ministry for work. He wants to tell Minho that after he goes home, and sleeps in a real bed after eating a real meal, to pack Seungyoon’s things from that house when he has time and bring them to the hospital, bring them to Seungyoon’s mother’s house. He wants to tell Minho to stop wearing that ring.

He wants to tell Minho to stop exhausting himself just to make sure Seungyoon recovers. Seungyoon is here, already brought back to the hospital, alive. Minho has already done more than Seungyoon deserved after the way he had left Minho ( _Seungyoon deserved to die_ ).

_I don’t need you to heal._

_You can let go of me._


	3. Chapter 3

Once, Seungyoon told Minho, while both of them were finishing reports and overlooking mission files in bed, that during Seungyoon’s most recent mission, he had finally understood what an out-of-body experience felt like. “When you see something so horrible—something I don’t think we, as humans, are supposed to know how to deal with, there’s no screaming,” Seungyoon said, picking up the stapled pack of papers and flipping to the next page. “You just go on and do what you have to do as if you didn’t even see it—your body moves without your mind, and then your mind pays for it later.”

When Jiho transforms back into a human, and breaks the door of the cell open with a flick of his wand, when the dust clears and the door is completely moved, Minho understands as well. When he barely registers the sound of one of the Aurors beside him rushing out and retching, when he can’t even process Jiho shouting in shock and restraining Thor with stunning spells after the dog crushes the remaining guards arrested nearby in his mouth—when all Minho can see is the twists of blood and skin and bones in front of him, Minho understands.

He doesn’t shake, he doesn’t cry—his eyes have never felt dryer, his breathing has never been more even, as steady as if he was sleeping peacefully. He kneels with ease, and doesn’t blink or wince—he doesn’t know if he’s even  _ feeling _ —as he looks on. 

They’d stripped him down to a thin, black pair of cotton shorts, some parts clinging to his skin from dried blood. There is barely any skin that isn’t covered in bruises or lacerations. One of his closed eyes is swollen and dark, and the other has more bruising beneath it, reaching down to his cheek. His lips are cracked, fresh blood and dried blood mixing, and there’s more dried blood crusted in his hair and against his forehead. 

Minho can count Seungyoon’s ribs. If he wanted to, he could count each one without even leaning in to peer closely. Every single one was visible, all of his bones were protruding harshly beneath his skin. Minho could tell that some of the bruising was made worse by how thin his skin seemed, stretched over his bones with nearly no more fat in between them anymore. 

Bones.

His bones are all wrong. His limbs—everything was wrong. His arms and legs are bent at utterly unnatural angles—like a doll that someone had twisted every which way. 

If Minho hadn’t felt for a pulse upon sight—a weak, slow, pulse—Minho would have thought he was dead. He would’ve thought he’d _ been _ dead. 

Minho doesn’t want to know when his mind will pay for everything he has seen—everything he isn’t processing for the sake of what needs to be done in this very moment. He doesn’t want to know when, and he doesn’t want to know how—he needs to take advantage of the numbness while it lasts. 

He heals everything that he can—all the bruises, all the cuts and open wounds. There are some that, for reasons he doesn’t understand, will not close—a few bruises that will not dissipate and cuts that remain fresh. He wants to give an attempt at healing the broken arms at the very least, but he knows it requires angling and spells more complicated than the few Healing charms Minho knows. He doesn’t want to take risks. 

When Minho has healed enough that he thinks he can move Seungyoon, just slightly, at the very least until Jiho finishes organizing the Aurors and arrests outside, he shrugs off his robes and points his wand carefully at Seungyoon, lifting him just enough to slip the robes beneath him and around his shoulders. Minho himself comes closer, angling Seungyoon so that his head is resting against Minho’s arm and thigh. 

He runs his hand once through Seungyoon’s hair, fingers coming up with crackles of old blood mixed with the dirt from the cell floor. Minho again waves his wand over Seungyoon’s head, watching the strands slowly become clean—becoming soft and fresh and it almost is utterly out of place in juxtaposition with the state of the rest of Seungyoon. 

Minho places a hand on Seungyoon’s cheek, and Minho is numb—so unfeeling that he only can dully note how there’s no more soft plumpness, simply sharp cheekbone and loose skin. He watches, however, as what Minho has just healed begins to take effect—no matter how small—and Seungyoon’s chest rises and falls more strongly with each breath. He watches as Seungyoon’s eyelids quirk slightly, not opening, but not quite anymore so close to death. 

Somehow, for a split second—in the second that Seungyoon’s entire torso shifts, that Seungyoon moves infinitesimally, inching closer to Minho, head turning to press his cheek against the crook of Minho’s arm—all of the numbness that had overtaken Minho abates. Just for that moment, Minho thinks his heart might stop, thinks he might break into a million pieces and never be able to put himself together. 

His thumb touches his ring. 

“I’m sorry," he whispers. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm _sorry_."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of [this](https://twitter.com/_92914/status/980179882666811392) thread

Because Jiho is a coward—because he is someone who no longer deserves to have Seungyoon look up to him ever again, who no longer even deserves Seungyoon’s respect—he asks Minho to relay the news to Seungyoon the day after Jiho has erased Seungyoon’s name from the Registry. He does not tell Minho what the Ministry has said, does not even tell Minho that Jiho spoke to the Ministry. Minho was present when the Healer had told both of them, as well as Seungyoon’s mother, that it was in Seungyoon’s best interest to resign from being an Auror, and that was all Minho would ever know.

Jiho hates himself, and he hopes Seungyoon will hate Jiho as well.

(Hopes—but knows that it is impossible.)

Jiho visits, for the first time since Seungyoon has regained consciousness, much, much later in the evening—part of him is even hoping that his visit will be rejected by the Healers for being so late and not being a family member or next of kin. 

When he enters the room, Seungyoon is not sleeping, instead propped up with and surrounded by pillows. Oddly enough, Minho is not in the room at this time of the day, and Seungyoon must’ve seen the confusion on Jiho’s face because he says, voice still hoarse and weak, but amused, “He said you’d be coming, and that you probably wanted to be free to blame yourself for everything and apologize to me unnecessarily without him watching so he went to pick up food.”

Jiho tries to crack a smile at that as he sits down on the edge of Seungyoon’s bed, but it comes off terribly—he knows it—and he also knows it by the look of exasperation on Seungyoon’s face. 

Seungyoon’s thin, gaunt, almost unrecognizable face. 

“Hyung,” Seungyoon begins, shaking his head.

“No,” Jiho says quietly. He hears his own voice gain the eerily steady coolness it does whenever he retracts completely within himself—his defense for when things become too much, when he despises himself too much. “No—listen. Just listen to me.” He folds his hands calmly, and looks into Seungyoon’s clear eyes evenly. “I sent you to die.”

He watches as Seungyoon’s fingers flex beneath his cast, gripping the blankets even though Seungyoon’s expression is suddenly as even and cool as Jiho’s—something both of them have picked up through the years, he supposes. Auror training does that to someone—turns bright boys from Hogwarts into wizards who have their emotions as controlled as their magic. “I read the parameters—over and over, I saw the initial reports for the first ever investigations when the case opened. I saw everything, and if only one wizard is sent, even if he was the most capable, most elite, most experienced Auror the Ministry had to offer, it would still be a complete suicide mission.” 

“You are an incredible wizard,” Jiho says, and doesn’t look away even as Seungyoon’s ears flare red—even as Seungyoon looks away himself, down into his lap, down at his bandaged arms. “You are an extraordinary Auror, and the Ministry knows that. They also know that you would see the parameters they had the previous team adjust for the file and you wouldn’t want to take the back-up option. They picked you because they knew that, and they would rather gather some information and lose one wizard than finish the case and risk losing seven—eight, nine, ten wizards.”

“That—” Seungyoon’s voice breaks, but he pushes on and the sound of it takes Jiho’s heart and smashes it right down the middle. “That’s understandable. That makes sense. I don’t bl—”

“You should.” Jiho meets the mild raise of Seungyoon’s eyebrows with a set jaw, an unrelenting gaze. “You should blame them—and you should blame me. They set the mission, but I gave it to you. I sent you out to die,” he finishes simply. 

Seungyoon looks back at him, eyes soft, and Jiho wants to tell him to stop. That isn’t what he deserves. He knows what’s coming because it’s Seungyoon, and it isn’t right. “But I didn’t die,” Seungyoon says simply, “because of you.”

“Because of Minho,” Jiho corrects, his smile dry and humorless.

Seungyoon grins suddenly. Jiho wishes he could think about something other than how strange it is, how wrong it looks, that Seungyoon has no more cheek to bunch up when he makes that expression. He wishes he could stop looking at the dark, painful circles beneath Seungyoon’s eyes. “You think he didn’t tell me?” Seungyoon asks softly. “That when he went to ask you for help, you were already going to go alone?”

“I’m glad to see you still think as highly of me as you did during our school days,” Jiho says sarcastically, “so much so that now the standard is me making an effort to find you after I’ve dispatched you to your death.”

“You weren’t always this dramatic when we were at school,” Seungyoon counters in a way that Jiho has to laugh at—a laugh that makes its way through him like it hasn’t in weeks. Seungyoon reaches out, one hand stiffly over Jiho’s because of the wraps—the gauze and plaster rub against the skin of Jiho’s knuckles. 

“The Ministry doesn’t—didn’t deserve you,” Jiho now is the one who can’t quite meet Seungyoon’s eyes. He stares at the folds of the bed covers. 

Seungyoon squeezes Jiho’s hand as best he can with the cast. “What about you, then? Do they deserve you?”

_ Yes. Because I’m as terrible as they are. Because by sending you out there, I’ve already become one of them. Because it’s too late for me. Because there is no other way to stop wizards like you from dying unless I become one of them. Because I’m not like you—because you’re kinder than me, warmer than me.  _

_ Please, never be like me. _

“They will keep trying,” Jiho plays it off, turning his hand around to hold Seungyoon’s back. “Think that all I need to behave myself is another promotion.”

Seungyoon laughs, and it’s incredible, and a relief—an intense relief—that Seungyoon’s laugh can somehow still be as full and boyish as it was all those years ago. Even though it’s deeper, it still rings the same as it did in Jiho’s ears through the corridors of Hogwarts as they walked to class together, Jiho telling Seungyoon about what he saw Jihoon get detention for the other day; in the Great Hall, when both of them are laughing at Minho for getting another Howler; on the grounds, when Jiho is watching Seungyoon get chased by Thor. 

Even though Jiho is the one who is still whole and well, it is Seungyoon who remains unchanged from their days at school. Jiho is the one in pieces—as broken as Seungyoon is physically, Jiho is the one who is day by day becoming the sort of wizard he never thought he would have grown to be. 

_ Dream another dream. A different dream. One where you won’t be used, one that values your warmth and kindness rather than uses it.  _

_ Be happier than me.  _


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will be writing how Seungyoon gets to this point (in his physical therapy) as well, but some inspiration came up between then and now, and I didn't want to lose it so I wrote this part out of order. The portion between the last MinYoon chapter and this one will take a while to write so I just went and did this tidbit first.

Seungyoon goes with Minho to the Ministry nowadays—some days.

On the days when he’s strong enough, he sees no point in sitting around at St. Mungo’s when his discharge is near anyway. The more he is able to stand on his own and walk—even if, at a crushingly, painfully slow pace, each step impossibly heavy and clumsy—the more the Healers seem to want to discourage him, unable to leave him alone to drag himself around with gritted teeth. There is always, without fail, a handful of them in the corridors who will attempt to escort him back to his room.

It’s much easier to simply go with Minho to the Ministry and continue his therapy there on the Department floor. No passersby bother him, all of them rushing here and there to conferences and so forth—unlike the Healers, they are not obligated as part of their literal job to make sure he doesn’t hurt himself. 

Minho was against it, at first, saying that even though he, too, is frustrated with the growing uselessness and discouragement of the Healers the further Seungyoon progresses, that at the very least in the case that Seungyoon  _ does _ hurt himself, there will be people there to help him when Minho can’t be around. 

“I’m literally inching like a snail,” Seungyoon had said, “and I have crutches. Nothing is going to happen.” He’d regretted the words as soon as they came out, seeing the familiar emotion flash over Minho’s face before the other man hides it down and smiles. 

Seungyoon can’t seem to do anything right by Minho even if he tries, it seems, ever since he was brought back from the fate he very much deserved.

Today is one of the good days. Seungyoon hurts, but only a little, and otherwise he isn’t leaning too heavily on both crutches—only one, while the other is there more for a safety. The flexion on his left leg is increasing steadily, the bones completely healed—cast removed nearly two weeks ago. His right leg had also been uncasted, but for the time being, it’s dead weight. Seungyoon can feel that it can work, somewhat, someday, but for now, he’s simply dragging it as if it was a clunk of wood attached to his hip. 

Similarly to a clunk of wood, the only thing he can do on it, so far, is balance precariously in a parody of a stance—and even that is truly precarious at best, with Seungyoon needing to lean heavily on something.

He usually makes his rounds from Minho’s office through the Department floor. Occasionally, he reaches the elevator and takes it down to see Jiho if he isn’t busy. Most days, however, Jiho is busy, and Seungyoon is too exhausted to reach the elevator and then have to walk to Jiho’s office deep on the vast third floor anyhow. 

Seungyoon wants to focus on trying to further increase the flexion of his left leg simply, for now, so today he concentrates while he walks—attempting to naturalize the movement and teach the muscles what it means once again to truly  _ walk _ rather than just stiffly bring him forward. He’s fairly certain he’s getting ahead of himself considering he can barely even accomplish stiffly bringing himself forward without breaking into a sweat. 

Minho has more than a few admirers in his Department and within the Ministry—the few times when Seungyoon wasn’t on field duty but still had to report to the Ministry for reports or other paperwork, it was a fairly common occurrence for him to be dropping by to catch lunch with Minho and find witches from any Department casually wandering the corridors leading to Minho’s office. 

Now that Seungyoon is doing rounds constantly, moving around more or less on a quite predictable daily schedule, he’s come to recognize the faces he sees ambling around Minho’s office near lunchtime—during their break, he supposes. A particular group of four or five witches who seem to all know each other, most likely from the same Department, always absently chat with Minho’s secretary who sits at her desk at the start of the corridor that leads directly to Minho’s door. 

He’d greeted them the first time he passed, simply out of reflex and habit, a bow of his head and a quiet  _ good afternoon _ . They’d looked incredibly alarmed for some reason, all of their eyes flitting down to his legs, then to his crutches, lastly settling on his face for a brief moment before looking away completely. After that, they’d taken to seemingly attempting to appear as engrossed as possible in conversation with each other and Minho’s secretary whenever Seungyoon would pass. 

He thinks nothing of it—nothing of them—it’d be awkward too, he imagines, if he sets himself in their place. He never greets them with intent, just manners, but he knows that they have no way of knowing that. They are probably already confused enough in the way he continues to pull himself around, looking like someone who should absolutely still be at St.Mungo’s, not a floor of the Ministry.

He limps past them at his usual, torturously slow pace, taking a good, full forty or more seconds just to take the few steps needed past the desk of Minho’s secretary where they are gathered today without fail. Another fifty seconds before his back faces them completely and he’s about a quarter of the way to Minho’s office.

He wonders, then, if they’d meant for him to hear—if they didn’t bother checking how far he had gotten and simply underestimated exactly how slow, how long it takes for him to move just a few centimeters at a time. 

“Shall we place bets, then?” he hears one of them say, teasingly, light. 

Minho’s secretary coughs. “They’re engaged, you know.”

“You can break off an engagement,” another one laughs incredulously. “You can break off a marriage.”

“I don’t bet if I don’t think I can’t win,” a third voice says coolly. “I’d rather bet on if he’ll ever walk again.”

A fourth voice begins to say something before breaking into a short chuckle. “That’s not betting. You don’t bet on whether the sun will rise tomorrow.”

The second voice snorts then. “Honestly—won’t this be the same thing, though? He can barely stand—let alone—well.”

There’s laughter then—a lot of laughter, stifled, but clearly full of mirth and cheer, and Seungyoon slowly begins his pace towards the door again. Step, crutch, drag, crutch, step—repeat. They are a terrible judge of character—Minho’s character—but the outcome remains the same. The outcome will remain the same. 

He’s about halfway there when he senses someone approaching, and looks up in time to see Minho standing in front of him, worry all over his face before he meets Seungyoon’s gaze and quickly conceals it. Faintly, in the background, Seungyoon hears the laughter fall to silence—he hears footsteps, most probably all of them rounding the corner as subtly as they can to catch the glimpses they came here for. 

“I got us lunch,” Minho says, hands twitching at his sides, and Seungyoon knows that he wants to take Seungyoon’s crutches and put Seungyoon’s arm over his own neck and half-magick, half-carry Seungyoon back. It was what Minho did the very first day, and Seungyoon had expressly, bluntly, told Minho to never do it again because it defeated every purpose of why Seungyoon is doing this in the first place. “You’re usually back before now—I—”

Seungyoon smiles mildly. “I can wear a name tag if it makes you feel better. ‘If found, please return to Level Two—Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, ask for Song Minho.’”

“Hilarious,” Minho snorts, but the relief that spreads across his face is obvious and undeserved, in Seungyoon’s opinion. 

Seungyoon wouldn’t have faulted him if he simply had asked Seungyoon, just this once, to give Minho the crutches and magick himself to the room because Minho had most likely waited an hour or so for Seungyoon to return—Minho is most likely starving by this point and, unlike Seungyoon, has actual work to do before and after the lunch break. 

Minho does nothing of the sort, however, keeping pace with every laborious step Seungyoon takes, and even though Seungyoon wants to tell Minho to just go on and start eating without him—he knows it would be pointless. 

_ Soft-hearted. _

When they are nearly to the door, Seungyoon asks, playfully, “Did you get dessert, too?”

Minho glances at him almost in offense. “You think I’d get lunch, knowing I’m eating with  _ the _ Kang Seungyoon, and not get dessert?”

Seungyoon knows the clock is ticking, and their moments are numbered, but for the time being, he lets Minho’s arm around his waist, helping him down and out of the crutches—lets the feel of Minho’s body, solid and warm against his, erase the witches’ laughter from ringing in his ears. 


	6. you were (beautiful)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said that the next thing I post from this storyline would be Mino's POV during the early stages of the recovery, but then the album came out and We Were, particularly the lyrics of the bridge, wouldn't not let me [write](https://twitter.com/_92914/status/981922790126202880) [this](https://twitter.com/_92914/status/981923066493140993)

Seungyoon knows how to be tortured. 

It is one of the first things taught at the Academy, in the first year of training, usually in the first few weeks as it is a set of lessons that needs to be ingrained as reflexively as breathing and blinking. It isn’t something so much to be learned as it is conditioned. Torture training has to become first nature in their bodies, so that even when they are being broken down and taken apart into pieces, what will remain is their training. 

One of the core lessons, the first part of the training—possibly the most important and what they are constantly examined and tested for throughout their entire time there—is how to keep their will to live. Their trainers all stress that they will be shocked at how much simply wanting to live could do and does—that Muggles often describe it as miraculous that a terminal patient could pass death simply by fighting so incredibly hard in wanting to live, that when a human does not wish to live anymore, their body acknowledges that in some ways. 

The Auror assigned to Seungyoon’s squadron says, on the first day, “Do not use memories of a loved one. Do not use thoughts of a loved one. We are Wizards, but we are humans, and humans are fragile and fickle. If that person dies or leaves you, how will you live on then?”

 

* * *

  
  
The first few times Seungyoon is caught and tortured, the ordeal lasts a day or two—or less—at the most, and he handles all of it right by the book. He recites passages from textbooks in his mind, he thinks of—as generally as the lessons had allowed—the friends and family he has waiting for him, he thinks of how this pain will not last, of how many Wizards are at stake if he does not live on and survive the mission, of how many Aurors are depending on him, on how much he hopes those who are torturing him meet their fates in Azkaban. 

On Seungyoon’s seventh mission, he is captured and tortured for nearly a week—on and off with the Cruciatus Curse, and in between, they force-feed him a potion that causes him to hallucinate as if he is being physical torn apart limb by limb and burned alive. 

He wants to die.

For the first time, he truly simply wants the pain to stop at all costs and death is suddenly, terribly, appealing. 

The potion is worse than the Cruciatus Curse because the pain is somehow even more visceral and real in his mind, and the effects last longer. In the midst of the worst, most potent, of one of the dosages that they administer to him, when he feels like flames are licking at his skin even though he can see nothing of the sort happening right before his eyes as he jerks and screams on the stone floor, Minho’s face comes into his mind’s eye.

In that moment, there is no feasible way for Seungyoon to control what he thinks about. He simply lets the thoughts come because the pain is consuming him, and Minho’s face turns into a full-blown replay of the last time Seungyoon had seen him before this mission, seven days ago—moments in the early dawn before he left at sunrise.

Minho had work in the morning that day, but he’d stayed up with Seungyoon the entire night the way he always did before Seungyoon had an assignment if the departure time was early in the morning. They’d spent the night slow and warm and sweet, Seungyoon inside of Minho, chest pressed up against Minho’s back, skin to skin, hips aligned, Minho’s knuckles white as his hand grips the headboard. They hadn’t slept after that, a sprawl of tangled limbs and sticky sheets, in the semi-darkness, talking and laughing and kissing with just their wands lying on the nightstands aglow, until the blackness filling their bedroom turned into a deep blue—a pale blue—then a soft orange that had Seungyoon reluctantly pulling away, disentangling himself from Minho’s arms.

Minho had slipped into sweatpants and Seungyoon’s sweatshirt, and, as he always did, followed Seungyoon out into their backyard after the Auror had showered, dressed, and packed. Seungyoon had felt Minho’s soft gaze on him as he’d bid goodbye to Thor, sleepily coming out of his own house to lick at Seungyoon’s hair and face. 

“Ugh,” Minho had laughed slightly as he took Seungyoon’s face, cheeks still damp from Thor’s affection, into his hands. “Dog slobber.”

“You don’t need to kiss me,” Seungyoon had said, making as if to pull away. “I only need Thor.”

Minho had dropped his hands to his sides then, grinning. “Okay.” He’d slipped one of his hands around Seungyoon’s, threading their fingers together loosely. Seungyoon had met his eyes, and watched as the grin faded into a hesitant smile, and the playfulness waned into something solemn, something desperate and resigned. “You’d better come back,” he’d said, and the attempt at sounding light and teasing wasn’t as successful as both of them had probably hoped it would be.

They’d built Anti-Apparition wards deep into their house as well as the grounds that the building sat upon, but they’d put a Post in the far backyard corner wherein Disapparition (only Disapparition) was possible. Seungyoon squeezes Minho’s hand, and leans in to press their mouths together. “Don’t touch any of my yogurt while I’m gone,” Seungyoon had said, just to try to get Minho to smile genuinely—and Minho seemed to try, a flash of teeth even as his eyes had remained soft and worried. 

Minho had pulled his hand away gently and stepped back, watching Seungyoon walk to the Post. Thor had barked, the way the dog always had when he sensed that Seungyoon was about to leave. Minho had brought his wand for that reason, pointing it at Thor the way, before Seungyoon knew magic existed, Muggles would look warningly at their dogs. Thor quieted, and Seungyoon had smiled at Minho one last time before vanishing with a soft  _ snap _ .

The pain is not alleviated by any means. Seungyoon is still drowning in flames, unable to escape or run or extinguish the way he could if he were amidst a real fire. He still cannot stop the screams from shredding out of his throat, vomiting onto the floor and hearing his torturers laugh as he does. 

He doesn’t want to die.

He cannot die—he will not.

 

* * *

 

Seungyoon overpowers his captors before the team that was due to eventually follow him anyway has located his Trace—he burns through their restraints, wandless, with his own magic, gathered slowly in reserves through the course of a week. There are a total of seven captors and he has them all tightly stunned except for one. Before the Auror team arrives, Seungyoon takes the last remaining allotment of the potion they were to force-feed him, lifts the tube to the lead Extremist’s lips, and orders, calmly, his other hand pointing his wand at the witch’s temple, “Drink.”

 

* * *

 

He becomes foolish—so, so, incredibly foolish that he could only imagine what his trainers at the Academy who’d praised him and claimed that he would one day be Head of the Auror Office would say if they knew. He knows he should stop, knows that he should forget how much it helped—how strong it made him, how much more bearable it made the unbearable pain—and instead work on utilizing the techniques and mental training he’d slaved over learning at the Academy. 

Seungyoon, however, does none of those things. He continues to think of Minho whenever he is being tortured, whenever he is in hiding after escaping—wounds too deep to be healed by magic, reveling in the pain until he is able to Apparate into safety or until other Aurors arrive to help him. Every time he thinks death would be better, he thinks of Minho—of the last time he’s kissed him, the last words Minho has spoken to him, Minho’s smile, Minho’s laughter—and the promise to him that Seungyoon makes every time he leaves that he’ll return.

He thinks about how, regardless of how painless and blissful death would be, death does not have Song Minho, and for that, Seungyoon could weather through the pain of a thousand knives, scorching fires, torturous poisons, and so much more.  
  
  


* * *

 

Minho’s hand wraps around Seungyoon’s wrist tightly, holding him still, silently begging him to turn around, so Seungyoon does. In all of the years they have known each other, Seungyoon has seen Minho cry countless times—in joy, in sadness, in frustration, in anger, in fear, in pain. He has seen Minho cry for all sorts of reasons, for friends and family, from friends and family, from films and music, from books and animals. 

Seungyoon has never, ever, seen tears directed at him—because of Seungyoon himself.

They are unshed tears, brimming and held shining still in Minho’s eyes, wetting his long, dark eyelashes every time he blinks, and Seungyoon cannot discern exactly what type of tears they are. Minho’s expression is somehow frustrated, somehow angry, but his eyes are nothing but hurt. A part of Seungyoon wants to apologize, wants to say something that will turn this into the direction of a resolution so he doesn’t have to leave on bad terms, but a greater part of Seungyoon—a rash, furious part that is hurt as well—lashes out in turn. "Jiho-hyung can be an Auror. He can put himself into a coma—be Head of the entire Office, but I can't go on a mission alone? Either you care about him less, or you believe that I’m less capable than him. Which is it, Song Minho?"

 

* * *

  
  
Seungyoon begs.

He begs for them to kill him, the words slip out of his mouth after being held back for so long when they take his arms—pull, and  _ twist _ , and twist, and twist again. Once he begins to beg, he cannot stop. The pleas fall in his hoarse voice like wretched prayers, and all they do is laugh and cut at him harder.

 

* * *

 

The night Seungyoon first sees tears that he brought into Minho’s eyes is the night Minho looks at Seungyoon with a gaze so cold and sharp, Seungyoon’s instinctive response to it is to close up—to draw back, reeling silently and out of sight, a hollow feeling beginning at the pit of his stomach. Seungyoon has seen Minho look like that when he is speaking, low and dark, to superiors at the Ministry that frustrate him, when he walks out of a courtroom after a grueling trial, when he appears for a conference where he must intimidate and be every bit one of the last remaining Purebloods that he is.

Seungyoon has never had Minho turn that gaze on him.

Nor has he ever heard spoken to him the tone Minho uses when he asks, “Do you really want to die that badly?”  
  
  


* * *

 

He was stupid—so, so stupid and self-destructive and naive.

_ If that person dies or leaves you, how will you live on then? _

He tries everything he had done before—tries reciting passages, tries thinking of his mother, of Jinwoo, of Seunghoon, of Jiho, of all the other Aurors depending on the information he’d gathered here, of the fact that they’d made having a team optional because that was how much faith had been placed on him, he tries thinking of everything that was at stake if he died here. 

It works, for a time. It works for as long as Seungyoon was still himself enough despite the pain that he could count off how many days he’d been imprisoned.

When he begins to lose track of time, when he feels his magic fading from even the core of his existence, not simply retracting from his fingertips, but entirely so feeble from where it would normally burn bright within him—when the days simply blur into moments of pain, pain, pain, pain, pain—that is when it no longer works. 

Nothing works.

 

* * *

 

Seungyoon knows Minho is waiting for Seungyoon to say something—anything—that Minho believes there is no way Seungyoon would simply leave without even saying goodbye, regardless of how half-hearted or forced that goodbye would have been. He knows that Minho is not really sleeping, is wide awake and simply lying in the darkness while Seungyoon makes his way around their bedroom, packing and putting things away. 

He still says nothing—he leaves without speaking a single word more to Minho and tells himself that he’ll apologize when he returns, that he’ll return as he always does—maybe battered here and there, but alive, and Minho will see that there was nothing to be concerned about. Minho will see that he was overreacting, and Minho will forgive Seungyoon in the same way Seungyoon will forgive Minho for asking if Seungyoon had a death wish. 

Seungyoon looks up one last time at the window of their bedroom before Disapparating. 

 

* * *

 

When he begs for death, they mock him, gripping his hair and tugging until he’s forced to look up at them as the bones of his legs are crushed to the point where Seungyoon feels as though there is nothing but powdered remains inside of his flesh at this point. They mock him, and say, “Your Pureblood will mourn if we kill you, boy—he deserves to see you returned damaged, in a million little weak, crying pieces.”

He knows they are doing everything they can to ruin his limbs, to extract the worst kinds of pain possible from just those areas, because they leave everything he needs to live on untouched. The one time one of them nearly broke his ribs rather than simply fractured them, nearly caused one of his lungs to possibly be punctured, their leader stormed in and nearly skinned that Muggle alive right before Seungyoon’s own eyes.

“Death,” the leader says, bringing his foot down over Seungyoon’s stomach until Seungyoon rolls over and spits out blood and water—because there is nothing else left inside of him to vomit, “is a mercy that is not deserved by a traitor who lets a Pureblood fuck him.” He kicks at Seungyoon’s side, hard enough that it jostles the rest of Seungyoon’s broken bones, hard enough that it hits Seungyoon’s hip bone and Seungyoon doesn’t know what sort of sound strangles its way out of his throat.

“We’ll return you to him soon,” is the last Seungyoon hears before he blacks out.  
  
  


* * *

 

Seungyoon knows they are right.

Death would be a kindness that Seungyoon no longer deserves. In death, Seungyoon wouldn’t have to watch Song Minho walk away from him. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really, seriously, honestly Swear I am working on the Mino chapter, it's just taking ages and then I got distracted and this idea wouldn't leave my mind, so there it is.

Seungyoon finds it bitterly ironic that while the rest of his body is in shambles, there’s one system that hasn’t found any problems at all proving itself as healthy as ever. It happens just a little over two weeks after he’d been brought back, when nightmares still fill all the moments he is unconscious night after night—when he is still kept on heavy doses of Numbing and Sleeping Draught.

On an evening when Minho is sitting pressed up against Seungyoon’s side, half of him on the bed, and one leg out of the covers, foot still resting on the floor even though he’d taken both of his shoes off at the door—right after he’d tossed his robes on the chair near the coffee table—Seungyoon gets hard. He doesn’t know why it’s such an event in his mind, perhaps because he thought, like the rest of him currently, that part of him would also be down for the count and struggling to get back on its feet, no pun intended.

After all, he barely has an appetite—can barely finish half of his food every meal—mobility in any sense is a lost cause for now, without induced sleep he cannot obtain any sort of rest at all, he becomes dizzy when he simply sits up too fast, and so he honestly doesn’t understand why of all systems to be back on _go_ right away, it had to be that one.

Minho was chatting quietly about whether he could bring Thor this coming weekend to the hospital, on getting clearance for it with the Healers—possibly asking Yunhyeong first—when he started to drift, voice becoming quieter, head beginning to loll onto Seungyoon’s shoulder and Seungyoon’s pillows, body turning in more so that nearly all of him is on the bed and lined up against Seungyoon’s own body.

He’s watching Minho’s eyes blink slower and slower each time, heavier and heavier with every reopening of his eyelids, when he feels Minho turn even more against Seungyoon, arm underneath the covers brushing over Seungyoon’s erection. The contact has Seungyoon shifting slightly, and when his gaze flickers over inevitably to meet Minho’s, the other man’s expression is wide awake even though his eyes still look heavy, close to sleep.

Minho runs a hand through his rumpled hair—sleek and slicked back when he’d walked in an hour ago, and now tousled into disarray from laying against Seungyoon’s shoulder and pillows. “I didn’t know my twelve-hour workday aesthetic was so appealing,” he says, playfully, voice low and soft and sleepy. His cheek is still pressed down onto where Seungyoon’s collarbone leads into his shoulder, and Seungyoon can count Minho’s eyelashes from this angle—can watch the way they flutter against the tops of his cheekbones.

“It’s the wrinkled shirt, the creased robes, the sweat stains, the—” Seungyoon tugs at a lock of Minho’s hair, “—drying hair wax. Gets a guy going.”

Minho turns his face upwards, smiling cheekily, the corners of his eyes crinkling in a way that makes Seungyoon’s heart ache and, at the same time, causes the heat already gathering in his gut to simply grow hotter. Minho rolls in just a little more, lips easily pressing lightly against Seungyoon’s throat before he sits up with a warm sigh. “Can’t promise anything fancy,” Minho says, and Seungyoon’s brows furrow in confusion as Minho leans in, kissing his mouth briefly before pulling the covers down.

The realization hits Seungyoon at the same time that he makes to reach out to stop Minho, but both of his arms are still in casts too heavy to lift as fast as he’d like, fingers barely poking out. “Wait,” Seungyoon says, just as Minho is cautiously settling himself over Seungyoon’s legs, careful not to jostle anything.

Minho looks up from shucking the hospital robes up, fingers lightly dancing along Seungyoon’s waistband. The words on Seungyoon’s tongue somehow die upon seeing Minho’s expression. His eyes are already closing a moment before Minho’s lips press against his again, a longer kiss this time, open-mouthed and much, much warmer. The heat that’s curling between Seungyoon’s legs spreads through his entire body with that kiss, and he feels his body move forward by itself when Minho pulls away, chasing the other man’s mouth.

The casts on Seungyoon’s legs start high, reaching mid-way up his thighs, but the very tops of his legs are bare all the way until they join to his hips. Minho’s hands somehow find that small area of bare skin, but it’s different than the way he’d hold Seungyoon normally—infinitely gentler, feather touches and no pressure at all. Minho lets Seungyoon buck his hips, thrust into his mouth, doesn’t hold Seungyoon down and he doesn’t know if it’s because Minho knows how fragile Seungyoon is, physically, at the moment, or simply because he doesn’t mind.

He doesn’t last long, comes down Minho’s throat and feels the other man swallow around him—Seungyoon hears a whine rip its way out of his throat, muffled against the back of his hand at the sensation. He still has bruises that haven’t healed and the skin over his ribs is still too thin to be comfortable, but he somehow doesn’t mind the pain that comes with this right now—he’s breathing too hard, finding it much harder to catch his breath than it would be if he weren’t this injured but he doesn’t care in this moment.

Minho comes back up, lips swollen, the skin around his mouth slightly red, eyes so, so, so terribly warm as his face hovers over Seungyoon’s, looking down at him in silence for what could have been seconds—could have been hours. Seungyoon doesn’t know at what point he’d slid to the side on the bed, doesn’t know at what point both of them had fit themselves onto it as if this was their own bed—at home, the farthest thing from the sterile environment of a hospital.

Without taking his eyes from Seungyoon’s face, Minho summons one of the small washcloths hanging near the sink in the far corner of the room—it flies into his hand and Seungyoon watches as it grows damp in Minho’s hand.

They kiss while Minho wipes Seungyoon down. His fingers find the front of Minho’s shirt, a pinch of frustration welling up in him when he can’t feel any of the material or heat anywhere except against his fingertips because of the magicked plaster encasing his palms. The washcloth disappears with a twist of Minho’s hand, reappearing on the edge of the sink for any of the junior Healers to wash when they come in tomorrow.

Minho’s thumbs smooth over Seungyoon’s waistband as he pulls them up carefully, the backs of his fingers stroking up along Seungyoon’s bare hip bones in a way that has Seungyoon shivering. Seungyoon feels as if his voice has utterly left him, any words he thought he’d prepared jumbled on the way from his mind to his mouth. He can’t help but stare, just a little, as Minho ducks his head, burying his face against the side of Seungyoon’s neck, stifling a yawn there. Seungyoon feels the warm breath ghost over his skin.

“You really never listen to me, do you?” Seungyoon says, almost dryly, as Minho slides back into his original position, curled up against Seungyoon’s side, arms around Seungyoon’s waist, cheek pressed down to Seungyoon’s shoulder and chest.

“Why would I wait?” Minho makes it sound as if Seungyoon was the absurd one—as if Seungyoon had been the one acting absolutely out of his mind. “You seemed ready to go.”

Seungyoon snorts. “And now what?” He holds up his arms, waving the bulky casts in front of Minho’s face.

Minho’s laugh is filled with far, far too much content—too much peace, too much amusement and brightness to sit right with Seungyoon. His chest suddenly feels as if there are rocks being piled on top of his heart. “You owe me for a rainy day,” Minho murmurs, voice sleepy and happy as his arms squeeze lightly around Seungyoon. “Not in the mood right now anyway.”

“Plaster, fiberglass, and malnourishment don’t do it for you?” Seungyoon asks, lips ghosting over Minho’s forehead.

“You always do it for me,” Minho’s words are muffled and mumbled, slurring together, breaths slowing. His eyes are already closing. Seungyoon doesn’t realize he’s holding his own breath as he watches Minho fall asleep in just moments. He slips an arm through the space between Minho’s neck and the pillow, gathering him closer, as close as possible, until he can feel Minho’s heartbeat against himself.

Seungyoon doesn’t fall asleep for a long time.


End file.
